Gamma-ray telescope takes to heavens

October 18 2002

A powerful telescope designed to detect violent deep-space phenomena such as exploding stars and black holes was launched yesterday by a Russian rocket, the French Centre for Space Research said in Toulouse.

The 330 million euro ($593 million) observatory, Integral, has been built by the European Space Agency (ESA) with contributions from the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia and the United States.

The telescope will be the most sensitive detector ever made of gamma-ray radiation - high-intensity energy typically emitted by massive stars in their death throes, when they explode to become supernovae and then possibly collapse in upon themselves to become neutron stars or black holes.

Integral, weighing more than four tonnes and five metres (18 feet) long, stands for International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory.

It is carrying four instruments which will also simultaneously monitor emissions in the X-ray and visible light sections of the energy spectrum.");document.write("

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The launch, using a Proton rocket, took place from Russia's space station at Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The telescope was to be placed in orbit about 90 minutes later.

Integral will be deployed in an egg-shaped orbit, swinging between 90,000 and 153,000 kilometres above the Earth.

It joins three very powerful instruments, NASA's Chandra and Hubble, and ESA's XMM-Newton, in the new generation of orbiting observatories.